


Winter Storms Make Ex-Pharaohs Miserable

by Edeleweiss



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh!
Genre: Absolute fluff, M/M, also snark, i have no excuses aside from it being one in the morning, there's a kitten involved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-05
Updated: 2016-02-05
Packaged: 2018-05-18 08:26:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5913466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Edeleweiss/pseuds/Edeleweiss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Atem is left alone to brood while Yugi is at school.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Winter Storms Make Ex-Pharaohs Miserable

Winter Storms Make Ex-Pharaohs Miserable

 

It was one of those days when Yugi went to school and he was left in the lonesome house that he felt a tug in his chest. The door outside might as well have been a barrier past his home, his safety, stood almost taunting him, daring him to step out of it.   

Atem opened the door, his head peering out to the snow drifts of crisp, undisturbed snow down the sidewalk to the mailbox. A pause. Assessing. Calculating.

“Nope.”

The door slammed shut again with a decisive bang loud enough to shake the window. Running a hand through his hair with his free hand, he ignored the slight tremor in his fingers when he let go of the handle. 

Sometimes, he found that life was a difficult burden to carry.

On those warm summer days, he listened to the birds and to the pool that splashed and rippled just as the water did in Egypt. It was easy then, to set aside his previous life and live a new one. But winter inevitably crept in. The frigid, unfamiliar glare of snow that assaulted his eyes like a blade, the unforgiving winds that sliced through his clothes and ripped past skin to expose his vulnerable bones that clattered together. That was when his mind began to wander. 

Guilt came with the clouds. When the chilled air of a front slipped over the city, he closed the blinds and sat in the dark. Silently, he sat in wait for the storm to pass. On the occasion that he had to leave the sanctity of their home, Atem made time to wander. In a sense, it was to face the monster head-on. In another, it was to accept the one he’d become. His best friend in another life; Mahad, and his apprentice Mana, even his father… They had all been there in the Afterlife waiting for his return. He had chosen _this,_ to live and love in the present rather than to return to where he belonged—however, he hadn’t been entirely certain he _did_ belong there. He belonged where Yugi was, and had no regrets when he’d made the decision. There were still none. But he was a man out of his time, one who had blatantly ignored the laws of life and returned to live in another time, another place. 

Slumping onto the couch, he reached forward for his steaming mug of tea, ignoring any of those unpleasant sensations of wanting to leave his safe, warm little hole. A childish notion perhaps, that not seeing snow meant that the snow simply did not exist. An hour and two episodes of cheesy soap opera later, Atem pressed the red OFF button on his remote and the tv went black. How was it that when people were obviously going to ignore their responsibilities and hide from life under the guise of a snow day, they made certain such people received their comeuppance by putting only the trashiest shows on?

He sighed. Then he eyed the direction of the door. Another, much deeper sigh. Yugi would have been in a fit had he known the little tantrum Atem was throwing right now, but what he didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.

So how he got so bored to the point that Atem bundled up and ventured out onto the front porch with a thermos, a deep scowl carved onto his face like the fluffy powder adorning their front lawn had personally offended him, he had no fucking clue. But the damn _tugging_ feeling had only gotten worse, and escalated to a point where he either went outside and let his insistent brain get the mental torture it wanted or go mad and accidentally send himself to the Shadow Realm. 

“I hope you’re happy, dearest sky gods, for you have dragged an unwilling pharaoh from his palace,” Atem muttered upwards as he walked down the sidewalk to the street. The cloudy grey sky seemed to laugh when the wind picked up and a few stray flakes fluttered down to taunt him. 

And he was just about to turn back when a tiny noise stopped him in his tracks. Blinking wide crimson eyes, Atem whirled in place to pinpoint the location of the soft mewling. A kitten, tiny and pitch black like the night sky, cried in a pitch almost too high to be heard. And it was stuck in between the sidewalk and the drain, the creature being of the perfect size to be swept away by the melting snow. In an instant, Atem flew across the street in long strides and scooped the kitten into his arms, gently shushing and awkwardly petting its head. 

The kitten was freezing, and wet. Even with what limited knowledge Atem possessed surrounding hypothermia, he knew that this would probably be categorized as incredibly bad. Dashing back into the house, the kitten was immediately given the place of honor on the couch while Atem scoured for towels and returned to carefully dry and warm his fluffy visitor.

An hour later, the skies opened their fury onto the world below, but Atem smiled when he coaxed another meow from the kitty purring happily in his lap. A door slammed shut and a loud whine echoed through the house, as well as soft curses and bangs of something—or rather someone—running into furniture out of clumsiness.

“It’s freezing out there! I thought I might have frozen every inch of my body! I swear, even down to my—what is that?” Yugi blinked as he poked his head into the room. His body quickly followed, shaking off the cold snow with the thick outer jacket he tossed haphazardly onto the counter. 

“Even in Egypt we knew what a feline was,” Atem responded, ignoring the raised eyebrow he received in return for his sass. 

Yugi looked like he was trying very hard not to smile. “And they appear out of nowhere to sleep in vacant laps?” 

Atem looked up at him innocently, and the kitten paused in its purring to give Yugi the exact same look. 

“Oh my god, no, you cannot do that to me,” Yugi groaned, throwing a hand over his eyes. Then he stopped, lowered his hand, and narrowed his eyes in suspicion. “Did you name it?"

Atem grinned, and Yugi let out another groan. “I hate you, I hate you so much.” After a few more lines of incoherent muttering from Yugi, the man finally sat down beside Atem and reached out to stroke it. 

“So… what’d you name it?"

The smile on Atem’s face became softer, fond and gentle. “Mahad.” 

“Oh.” Yugi hesitated, biting his lip in wait for an explanation. He had never wanted Atem to have to choose between lives, but the man had chosen to live with him no matter the cost. Too often he wondered if the price to pay was too steep, letting go of his friends and family for someone like Yugi. Waiting to see if Atem said anything else, Yugi tentatively tried to delve into the matter. “And you chose that name… Why?” He asked carefully, as if uncertain whether he wanted to know the answer. 

A moment of thoughtful pause, and it took everything in Yugi’s power not to fidget in not-so-patient wait.

“My time as Pharaoh is over, but I’ve been given something no one else ever has.” Atem waited to see how this would be taken by Yugi, who seemed to understand as he listened intently. He smiled and leaned forward to kiss the younger man’s cheek, watching the slight flush return to his cold cheeks. “What I mean is my old life is there, my new life is here. I can honor my family no matter what time they’re in, all the while being with the one I found here.”

“Oh,” Yugi repeated, but this time his voice was gentler, quiet while he processed the words. Over the last few months, he’d become more and more concerned that Atem regretted his choice, no matter how many times he’d been assured otherwise. Something shifted in the air, and it was as if both of them could breath again, like it had been tense in the months following Atem’s decision to stay and neither of them had noticed it until it disappeared.

A comfortable silence stretched between them, and Yugi took the moment to nestle into Atem’s side, occasionally stroking Mahad with his fingers. “So, what I’m hearing here is, we have to keep the cat?"

“Yes Yugi, we have to keep the cat."

**Author's Note:**

> In honor of Friendship Day, a present for my best friend Deanna <3


End file.
